The thing about Taylor is that she’s never wanted to be a cape. She’s had powers she kept secret her entire life, powers her mother shared with her and also didn’t use except for occasionally around the house, only ever when her dad wasn’t home.
Then her mom died, in a car accident of all stupid things, and her powers hadn’t helped at all. It was too sudden. She died quick, the officers said, but that was no comfort to Taylor. Even a few moments could have made the difference if mom had been able to use her powers.
So, yeah, she was still bitter about it.
Still kept her own powers secret and only occasionally thought about putting on a costume to do something about the fucked up world.
It didn’t help that her intuition told her ‘not yet.’ That had been the refrain for most of her life, until for the last few weeks it had been telling her that something was coming.
Less a voice in her head and more a knowledge, those little flashes that came to her sometimes. Which path to avoid, turning left instead of right, the cold knowledge in the pit of her stomach that her mother was gone, three hours before the police called.
So it was a shaky Taylor who bought her hot tea at a late-night shop, in an area of town she usually avoided. The tea was good, though the tea house was distinctly Asian. She was firmly in Lung’s territory.
The villainous cape had only been in the area two years, and in those two years he’d changed up the atmosphere of the city completely. Now green and red gang tags decorated half the Bay and people walked in fear.
He’d also solo’d the entire Protectorate when he first came to town, thoroughly cementing his reputation.
Of course, the other local gang– the Empire, which had its hooks in the Bay since before she was born– hadn’t taken that lying down, and for the last year and a half the carnage had been increasing.
Suffice to say, Taylor wouldn’t be in this part of the city after dark without a really good reason.
That reason had Taylor’s leg twitching with anticipation as she stared at the street outside. That reason was her mother’s voice, speaking low on her birthdays, conspiratorial and secret.
The reason she’d braided her hair back, when she only wore it down. Why she’d worn all white, in sharp contrast to her usual style. Why this shop, this street, this evening as the clock ticked later and later.
And the reason she cupped a cheap, disoposible black domino in her palm, fidgeting with the sticky edges.
It was the most important night of her life, and now she was finally going to find out why.
–
Fire and death came crashing through a nearby alley, dressed in silver scales. The transformed cape bowled through a dumpster like it wasn’t even there, metal screeching into the street and rolling, knocking loose parts of the road.
Because the Bay needed more potholes!
Taylor froze, thoughts running a mile a minute. Part of her wanted to demand why now, why was Lung ruining what was supposed to be so important, and then the cool sense of reason slipped in.
Lung wasn’t interrupting the event; he was part of it.
Taylor scrambled out of the shop. She wasn’t the only one. The few denizens out this late were going for cover. Most had run in to nearby buildings, true, but one or two were scurrying like she was.
She dipped behind a car and slapped the domino mask on her face, glad her hair was out of the way.
“I’ll kill you!” Lung’s distorted voice swam out, mutilated by his transformation, and wreathed in fire. He pushed down the street with his elongated arms slamming into the ground, almost running on all fours.
It would have been comical if it wasn’t so terrifying, the lengthening elbows beginning to suggest wings.
Who was stupid enough to fight Lung this long? Even the Protectorate backed the hell out of dodge when he got more than seven or eight feet tall, denying him his prey and the satisfaction.
Without enemies, Lung’s power scaled back down, or so PHO claimed.
His power was threat-based. Against a normal human, he could barely breathe fire, a thin layer of scales defending him. Granted, you still wouldn’t want to fight a murderous gang leader like that, and you still wouldn’t win as a normal human, but at least he wasn’t
Against Leviathan, he’d helped sink Kyuushu.
Taylor couldn’t imagine poking the kind of power that could scale up to sink continents. She didn’t want to.
It sounded like Lung was going to kill whoever had dared.
Four figures darted out of the darkness, which she could now see wasn’t natural. What she’d taken for a patch of the bay with a conspicuous lack of streetlights was in fact a power effect of some sort, blanketing half the street in a semi-opaque cloud of it.
“Now!” Someone shouted, and the riders– Taylor almost thought they were on horseback, but the beasts were too misshapen, the proportions all wrong– darted right past just as Lung turned again, missing them with a gout of fire by only meters.
They sprinted past Taylor and Lung roared, rage at his impotence filling the area, shaking through her bones. He put on a sudden burst of speed and caught up to one of the creatures before they could disappear into a new patch of darkness, quickly emanating from one of the riders.
“Regent!” Someone screamed, and Taylor’s entire world narrowed down to the figure held by Lung’s massive, transformed claw.
It was like time slowed down.
Her heart beat once, the sound pulsing through her, carrying cold certainty.
It beat again, radiating out the cool luminosity she’d only ever felt in a circle of salt on a full moon, dancing silly and barefoot with Emma, her mother’s laughter ringing out.
Knowledge, and power. Moonsong sang through her veins, the waxing gibbous overhead so close to full. She’d never given it much thought before, and now it was a background constant, an awareness drowned out by the boy dangling from a stupid pirate shirt by a dragon.
On the third beat, Taylor moved.
She wanted to pick him up and fling him away, but her telekinesis had never been that strong. Even knowing it felt possible, she had to err on the side of caution, this was too important– too vital– to mess up.
Instead she flung a nearby metal trashcan at him, as fast and as hard as she could. It clanged into Lung, the dragon roaring with surprise, and the boy yelling with it too.
He dropped to the ground and looked up, and in that moment their eyes locked.
It only lasted a second. Less time than a blink. It shouldn’t have been anything, separated by almost half the street and yet that single moment seared itself into her mind and deeper, ringing with the crystal clarity of her oldest and most reliable power.
Oh, there you are, she thought.
It was startling and upsetting and she’d have a proper freak out about it later, but for now she had to– somehow– fight a dragon.
Or maybe just distract one.
“Run!” She snapped at the pretty idiot in the threatre mask, and without a word he scrambled to his feet– surprisingly graceful– and hopped back onto the mutated beast.
The other riders rallied around him.
Lung spun on her, malice seething from him.
Oh, right. Stupid plan.
On blind instinct, Taylor gripped for the night’s coldness. It rarely bothered her, the brisk night air a familiar friend, and she’d never feared the cold ocean or the bite of ice.
She’d also never flung it at someone before, but she did now, almost surprised when a bright wave of ice crashed into the dragon. Fire’s opposite, it should have been melted right away by the plume of it Lung unleashed, and yet the ice barely melted.
A wave of tiredness hit her and Taylor grit her teeth. She picked all the loose debris on the street, including a few more trashcans, and it flew around Lung, hitting him from the back as he pummeled at the massive, frozen wave of ice in his way.
The distraction was enough; a rider on a mutated mount drove hard over to her, a hand flashing down as it was in a barrel turn for speed.
“Grab on!” A girl called, Taylor only able to process blonde and purple before her hesitation died and she took the offered hand.
Surprising strength– mostly momentum fron the turn, she realized– lifted her up into the makeshift saddle, less leather and manmade and more the creature’s natural annatomy– a dip perfect for a large man or two teenage girls.
“No time for questions, go, go, go!” She hissed, and the quadruped– Taylor was beginning to see canid influence, though it had a tail like a lizard and bulging, grotesque muscle– shot off.
Darkness covered them, again semi-transparent in a great cloud. She could barely see in front of her, like a non-acrid smoke was obscuring her vision.
It didn’t hurt, but it tinted everything a strange gray.
A jolt of adrenaline buzzed through her.
“Almost– there!” She called, not bothering to lower her voice, and the largest rider– a cape in a big, full-face helmet– moved his arm in a strange signal.
His mount leaped nearly vertical and the others followed with only some hesitation, rendering them airborn.
Taylor’s gut clenched and she yelled, briefly, as the beasts landed on a rooftop, only a two or three story building but still. They then leapt to another, and another, until the street they’d left Lung on was far behind them– with no sign of pursuit.
“Oni Lee?” She asked, eyes on the skies now that the cloud had vanished.
The cape shook her head, barely visible from the bounce and tumble of being astride a large animal.
“Not tonight and if he was, he’d go for Lung, free him first rather than pursue.” She said, hard to hear over the wind. They were going quite fast.
“Free him?”
“You didn’t notice? Your ice trapped both feet up to the shin.” The blonde turned to her, green eyes shining out of a purple domino. “Good job and thanks, by the way.”
A rider ahead barked something and they descended abruptly, emerging in a surprisingly secluded alley. One of capes swung off her– Taylor thought it was a her–beast and the animal quickly moved a big green dumpster out of the way, revealing a massive hole in the side of the building’s brickwork it was pushed against.
“Quick.” The helmet one ordered, brisk. He was first through the opening, ducking as his beast carried him forward, just small enough to fit.
In fact everyone went through, and as Taylor’s eyes adjusted easily to the darkness she found them in a massive single room not unlike a warehouse, covered machinery pushed against the walls speaking to one of hundreds of production facilities long-abandoned by the Bay’s defunct economy.
“Bitch, get the dumpster.” Motorcycle helmet said, making Taylor frown immediately. The blonde helped Taylor down from their massive ride, which seemed to be… shrinking?
“I know.” The girl snapped, her short red hair messy atop a cheap dog mask, the kind you might wear at a kid’s birthday party.
She pointed her own shrinking animal at a large rope Taylor had missed, one wrapped around a pole just inside the opening. The other side of the rope was attached to the dumpster, a horizontal pulley for the beast to pull.
“I got it.” Taylor surprised herself by saying, stepping forward. Her hand rose and the dumpster itself bloomed in her awareness, heavy but she didn’t need speed for this so it was fine.
She nudged it into place over the course of thirty seconds, barely lifting it off the ground. Just enough to not make an almighty screech as it dragged.
“Wow. Telekinesis, huh?” The blonde rocked forward on her feet. Turning to her revealed a full body cat-suit, the kind of thing Emma would pretend to admire in a cartoon for being sexy and feminine.
“And cryokinesis, too. That was some power you pulled out at Lung.” She eyed Taylor like a particularly interesting insect under a microscope. “Mask, so you clearly planned to be there or you’re just always prepared, maybe both, no–”
“Tattletale.” Motorcycle helmet snapped tiredly. “Injuries, dogs, then debrief.”
“I’m fine, only singed my arm. Lost some of the suit and most of my hair but I’ll live.” She waved her arm which now that Taylor was paying attention, had evaporated of its catsuit material.
“Burn cream, now.” The apparent leader said, opening up a first aid kit. “Sound off.”
“I’m fine.” The butch girl grunted. “A– Regent’s not, though.”
Instantly Taylor’s heart caught in her throat and she knew it to be true, the finality of it settling into her bones. He was hurt.
Fairly badly.
Taylor was moving before she could think, approaching the boy barely conscious on his ‘dog’ as the other cape had called it. He groaned as it shrank and she didn’t think before yanking him off it, augmenting her strength with telekinesis to manage the burden.
His shirt was ripped, the frilly pirate collar damaged by Lung’s grip. Worse, the claws had pierced into him where the dragon’s fist met, none-too-gentle, and blood stained the white cotton.
All of that paled in comparison to his left leg, the leather eaten away by fire and leaving equally dark singe from the shoe up, damage covering knee to thigh.
“He’s burned.” Tattletale said, sucking in air through her teeth. “Grue, call the usual–”
Her voice faded out for Taylor, something about a doctor but…
Instinct grabbed her. It already felt momentus touching him, the boy her world had narrowed down to in the heat of the moment, and something cool and gentle was moving through her like a stream in the dark forest, tingling and invigorating at once.
The world didn’t slow down again, but it almost felt like it ought to. She reached for his hand, hesitating at the last second. The space between her fingers and his seemed to stretch like an eternity.
She swallowed hard and made skin contact.
Their hands touched, her fingers sliding against his, and both lit up with a pale white gold that pulsed through the warehouse.
A song defeaned her ears, something momentous and powerful, something she couldn’t quite make out, a chiming and chanting all at once.
She stared and the boy stared back, silver eyes wide behind his venetian mask. Their clasped hands continued to glow and almost vibrate with pulsing waves of power.
Looking around saw the other capes were half-frozen in a moment of concern, reaching out and moving towards them as though through molasses, super-slow with time frozen on them.
She and the boy let go fast, at the same time, practically jolting away from each other.
Things happened very fast then.
Some things were shouted, but Taylor missed most of it from the snarling jaws that were snapping right in front of her face, saliva and hot breath all she could feel.
“No, don’t!” The boy said, reaching out.
“Give me one good reason!” The butch girl yelled. It was one of the dogs– her dogs, still mutated– pinning Taylor down with a humongous paw and jaws almost wide enough to fit her entire head, should it choose to bite down. “What the fuck was that!?”
“I don’t know, but it healed me!”
The entire room turned to look at him, Taylor’s most important thing climbing to his feet with no visible injury, though his leg was pale in the dim electric lighting that buzzed overhead.
“You’re a healer?” The dog Master demanded, gruffly. “Brutus, come. You, don’t move. Answer the question.”
The dog hopped off her without hesitation and Taylor was left with four capes staring at her.
She suddenly felt a great urge to tell the truth, as getting caught in a lie would not end well.
“Uh, not exactly?” She sat up slowly, cautiously watching the red-head. “I’ve never had a healing power before.”
“It was… both of us.” The boy said begrudgingly. “Some weird power interaction, lay off her.”
“Not a power interaction like I’ve ever seen before.” Motorcycle helmet said, voice powerful and hard.
The boy shrugged, white puffy shirt loose on his shoulders.
“I don’t know what to tell you, bossman, powers are weird.”
“Powers are weird.” Tattletale said with disbelief. “My power has no idea what just happened and you know exactly how rare that is.”
The boy flinched a little.
“You got a name?” He turned to Taylor with a surprisingly flat voice. She’d be a bit offended by the brusque tone if she didn’t know down to her bones how important he was, sense the faint incredulity and curiosity wafting off him.
“Taylor.” She said breathlessly, meeting silver eyes. Not grey, not light blue, a bright pale silver– just like hers. Just like her mom’s.
Tattletale facepalmed.
“Oh, great, she’s an idiot.”
–
“Well, at least it solves the problem of unmasking to her.” The leader said, shrugging his massive shoulders and, to her shock, reaching up to unclasp the motorcycle helmet. “It’s Grue, by the way– or Brian.”
The last was said with a smile as his face was revealed, surprisingly dark in skin color and almost boyishly handsome.
“If Taylor’s even her real name.” The red-head continued glaring at her.
“What do you care? You’re outed, anyway.” The boy on the ground walked over, carelessly removing his mask.
“She could be fucking us.”
“Dear Rachel, I think we’d notice that.” The pretty boy said, for he was distractingly pretty, and something about it caught her completely off guard.
The red-head scowled before stomping off, clicking her tongue and her hands at the beasts that were now very small indeed, somehow rescinding into theirselves, something gross and almost bloody about the process–
Fingers snapped in front of her face, the pretty boy demanding her attention.
“You, mask, off please.” He said, rudeness tempered with barely-hidden impatience. No sign of it was on his face and Taylor felt it anyway.
She grimaced as she removed the domino and his mouth dropped open.
“Well, fuck.” He turned on his heel and walked away.
Tattletale gasped as he faced her.
“Your face–”
The boy paused.
“What?”
“Alec, you look different.”
The boy visibly paled.
“What, no I don’t, that’s not possible. Different how?”
“You look like her.” Brian said, coming in close and grabbing the boy by the jaw, turning it this way and that. “Is this more ‘power interaction?’”
“… No.” Alec– Alec!– said. His nose scrunched, an incredibly familiar visual. “Well, kinda. I was… ugh, I was wearing a glamour.”
“A what?” Brian looked at him.
“A disguise.” The blonde answered. “Power-generated? Ow, my power doesn’t even like thinking about it, just shunted me to ‘yes,’ and also ‘shut up’ so that’s normal, for you.”
“You were wearing a disguise? Around us? We unmasked to you, man!” Brian got heated.
“It was for everyone.” Alec frowned. “I honestly forgot about, I’d been wearing it for years. It was only minor changes, anyway, to make me look more like– forget it.”
“What changes?” The taller man demanded, looking closely.
“Well, shit, ain’t they obvious?” Alec gestured to his face. “I don’t know how I look without it, there’s been an entire puberty since then. Whatever changed back and isn’t there anymore, was part of the glamour. The main things were the eyes and the hair, I think.”
“It’s less curly,” Tattletale tipped a black lock between two fingers. “Only a little, though. And your eyes aren’t blue anymore.”
He’d had blue eyes?
“Pity, that, they were one of your best features.” Tattletale leaned in. “Though the pale almost-white is working for you, I guess.”
“Why do you look like her?” Brian said. “Do you two know each other?”
“No.” He said, just as Taylor shook her head almost frantically, echoing the word a moment later.
“Well, that was a little freaky actually.” Tattletale looked back and forth between them. “Say something else.”
“What do you want me to say?” The two echoed, at the same time, and even Brian took a big step back.
“That has got to be powers bullshit.” He decided, in the tones of someone very fed up and very exhausted from fighting a rage dragon.
Alec and Taylor shrugged, eerily in-synch.
“Oh, don’t let him know it bothers you, you know he’ll start doing it on purpose.” The blonde said, shooting a smile Taylor’s way. “I’m Lisa, by the way.”
“Lie.” Taylor said, immediate and knee-jerk, only to freeze a second later. “Fuck, sorry. That’s a power of mine. I’m not usually so goddamn obvious about it, just shooken up.”
“You know when you’re being lied to?” Alec demanded. “That’s bullshit, I don’t have anything like that.”
“Why would you?” Lisa looked back and forth between them. “Powers are completely separate.”
“Sorry,” Taylor said to the girl. “It wasn’t quite a lie, anyway, I can tell you really use that name.”
“Fascinating.” Instead of being offended the blonde leaned in. “That’s a very useful power, Taylor.”
The brunette frowned.
“Don’t get any ideas, tonight was a one-off thing. It’s nice to meet you and I’m glad I coud help with– the whole rage dragon thing–”
Next to her, Alec bit off a laugh, looking surprised at himself.
“But you’re not planning to be a cape.” Lisa squinted at her. “Ugh, my power hates you almost as much as it hates Alec, I can barely get anything.”
“Thinker interference?” Taylor asked in surprise, that was a relatively rare power conflict.
“I guess so.” The blonde was unbraiding her hair, twirled a lock between her fingers with faux casualness that made Taylor’s teeth itch. A lie with body language, she actually cared quite a bit.
“Um.” The brunette said, as Lisa calmly and methodically began removing her cat suit. Fortunately she was wearing a tee-shirt and little boy shorts underneath but Taylor’s cheeks still flushed.
Around her everyone was stripping.
“I have an extra pair of pants if you want, we look close to the same size.” Alec said, surprisingly amicable for someone basically boiling with silent confusion and fear.
“No need.” Taylor stripped off her own hoodie with ease, revealing a purple top underneath. Then she shucked the white sweats to reveal black cargo shorts underneath. It had been a bit bulky but needed for just this reason.
“I had a feeling I’d need to quickly change profiles.” She also started unbraiding her hair, amusingly matching Lisa in this instance. “All white is eye-catching, bright, and obvious. This is mostly dark and not even the same style. Short sleeved, short khaki, and the shoes could be anything.”
She shook out her hair, letting the wavy mane of it cascade down her shoulders. Then she slid her glasses on, completing the look, and smiled.
“Totally different person.” Lisa approved, doing much the same but in reverse. She tugged on a pleated red skirt and a stylish white wrap-thing over the shirt, transforming into a high-school girl with alacrity.
She’d even traded the combat boots for little strappy sandals.
Alec went light to dark like Taylor, exchanging the frills of his costume’s shirt with a dark t-shirt, and a black hoodie. Then she saw she was only half right; he was really flipping his costume colors, which became apparent as he tugged on a white skirt and vans.
The shoes were also black and white and he finished the outfit with a surprisingly-feminine white beret on top of his curls– well, surprising until you remembered the skirt.
Taylor boggled a little.
Brian, by contrast, was wearing a crisp white button down over jeans. It was impossible to mistake him for ‘Regent’, however, as he was wider, broader, the wrong demographic and, of course, about a foot taller.
He was also rolling his eyes at his teammate’s antics.
“Are you trying to fight the ABB and the Empire in the same night?” He asked pointedly.
Alec flashed him a charming grin, giving a little twirl.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, bossman.” His pleated skirt did the princess thing, flaring out. “Besides, I can take ‘em.”
He glittered at Brian who sighed.
“In a fight?” He said, with an air of resignedness.
“That too.” Alec chuckled to himself and Lisa and Brian both groaned.
“Why’d you walk into that one, it was obvious?” Lisa complained and Brian fixed her with a look.
“You know he just gets worse if we don’t play along and I’m already tired. I can’t handle ‘worse’ tonight.”
–